


YOU AND I, LOST TO THE WINTER

by rooneysrose



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Car Accident, Gen, Grief, Magic Tricks, Survivor Guilt, Temporary Character Death, Zanna (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21672853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rooneysrose/pseuds/rooneysrose
Summary: When a car crash takes Sam’s life, Dean thinks he’s lost his brother for good. Not long after, though, he’s visited by a Zanna that has taken on Sam’s form, and together they have to undertake the journey of growing up, growing, and learning how to let go and forgive.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	YOU AND I, LOST TO THE WINTER

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna see what inspired this fic, kirathehyrulian posted her art on tumblr. [You can check it out here.](https://kirathehyrulian.tumblr.com/post/189474439294/spn-rb-art-masterpost-2019-please-do-not)
> 
> Many, many, many thanks to my lovely d_claiborne, for the love and support and the amazing beta job.

  
  


_ in my dreams, we’re always together _

_ and there are no odds stacked against us _

_ there are no wars, no fights _

_ and tragedy doesn’t stand between us _

_ there is only you, knuckles on my cheeks _

_ there is only me, palms to your neck _

_ just us _

_ and we are at peace _

_ and that is all that needs to be said. _

**— in my dreams, we’re together | wt.**

#  December 5th, 7.34am

The car ran smoothly on the frozen roads, Dean’s Baby ready for any kind of weather to hit them. Sam was asleep in the backseat, his legs curled up on the narrow space, too long to fit comfortably. They’d been for years now, since he’d had his last growth spurt and he’d gotten taller than Dean.

Led Zeppelin was playing quietly in the background, quiet enough for Sam to be able to sleep, loud enough for Dean to be able to hear and hum the lyrics under his breath. Winter had hit hard this year, the nights getting colder and colder and colder and the ice on the road getting thicker.

He’d gotten so used to driving like this, with the same old tires, that it didn’t faze him anymore. Sam had nagged him about it not too long ago; he’d told him that he needed to be more careful around him.

Ever since Sam had seen his girlfriend die on his ceiling, the same way their mother had done, years and years and years ago, he’d changed. He’d run away from hunting because this wasn’t the life that he had wanted for himself. Sam had always wanted to be more than this, more than a mindless killer. More than someone who just seeks out things to destroy. He’d wanted to do more and help people. Get them out of jail or the right parties in it.

Ever since Jessica, things had changed. The idea seemed to have quietly left his head, his only focus on finding the monster. The monster that their father had died hunting. From still trying to go to classes, Sam had gone to officially dropping out just a week ago.

They didn’t talk about it. They never had. Dean knew that his brother wasn’t okay with it but that he was forcing himself to be. That he had to continue on the hunt and get his revenge. Right now, that was all he wanted. His own therapy. Destructive as it may be.

The road swerved and swirled around in never-ending loops. Dean had been driving for hours now. They’d left their original location at three in the morning, tired but glad to have finally ended their case. It had taken them a week to find the shapeshifter and killing them had been rough. Hyped up on adrenaline he’d told Sam that no, they didn’t need to go ahead and get a motel for the night. They could drive for a while.

Dean drove and Sam slept. As much as Sam wanted to drive, Dean didn’t know if he wanted his brother behind the wheel of his Baby. He’d built her up from scratch after his father died. Replaced anything that was broken, made her shine again. He loved hearing her purr in the quiet of a morning, when even the birds were still quiet. Sometimes, it was the best kind of music he could ever have.

They hadn’t encountered any traffic so far. He knew that back roads were deserted often, that it was least likely for him to run into any kind of people. He preferred it that way. Just him, his brother and the car with the toy soldiers stuck in the vents.

Dean didn’t expect the ice patch to hit them the way it did. He’d carefully avoided one fifty meters earlier and swerved around it, careful not to let the wheels spin or the car get out of control.

In the rearview mirror, Dean watched his brother stir and open his eyes. The sudden move had startled him awake. Not enough to keep him out of the slumbers for longer than a couple seconds, though.

Dean had missed his brother in many ways when he went off to Stanford. He missed having someone to talk to in the morning, missed having his brother during the mundane things like picking up beer or working on the car. He had missed every single aspect of sharing a life with his brother. He was grateful to be sharing it all with him again.

Dean tried to keep his hands on the wheel and keep the car in line. It spun out of control, swerving without giving him any chance to correct, safeguard them.

“What’s going on?” Sam mumbled sleepily from the backseat, now sitting upright. Dean hadn’t noticed that he’d fully woken up - he’d been too focused on the road.

“Ice,” he grunted in reply, not finding the time to say more. His blood was pumping through his veins. “Hang on, Sammy.”

**  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**

#  December 10th, 5.34pm

Dean Winchester opened his eyes to a pounding headache. He couldn’t remember anything of the last couple of days. He remembered getting in the car with Sam, listening to music while his brother slept and then nothing, darkness, waking up here.

He didn’t even know where  _ here _ was. The scent stung in his nose, the cleanness of it.  _ Disinfectant _ . Just the smell made him feel nauseous and sick, made him want to throw up. His empty stomach was the only thing that kept him from retching. 

Slowly, he became aware of more of his surroundings as the world became clearer around him. The beeping of the monitor registered with him, the sounds of people in the hallway talking. The itch in his arm where he noticed a bandage.

_ A hospital _ .

It clicked with him, mind clearing up. 

He was in the hospital. They’d been in the car and he’d hit an ice patch, the car had gotten out of control. Sam had woken up and then nothing. Nothing but blackness. Dean didn’t remember being brought to the hospital, didn’t have a recollection of them putting an IV on him. Didn’t remember how he had gotten into the hospital gown that made him feel like there was barely any fabric covering him.

_ Sammy _ . He had to find his brother, needed to make sure that he was okay.

  
Dean sat upright in bed, examining the situation. Besides the headache, he couldn’t feel any pain. There didn’t seem to be any casts or anything on him, no wounds that he could see. He must have gotten lucky. Maybe the car hadn’t been in too bad a shape, maybe they just got a bump and he’d run into his brother in the hallway.

Dean pulled at the IV, wincing at the pain that came with the bandage tearing loose and what felt like half of his arm hair being ripped out with it. Blood almost instantly gathered in his elbow, running smoothly down his arm.

He wished that he could care about it.

All he could think about was Sam. All he needed to do was find his brother and make sure that he was okay.

The rails on the side of the bed proved to be more of a problem. He eventually managed to crawl over them and nearly fall to the floor, barely able to keep himself upright. Standing didn’t hurt him much. His legs protested after being still for too long and the pounding in his head became more of an angry growl.

The monitor screaming at him because he had pulled the pads stuck to his chest loose didn’t particularly help him either. He knew the blaring alarm would attract more attention than he wanted.

He had to act fast if he wanted to find Sam.

Fast was difficult when he had to figure out how to get rid of the bag collecting his pee. Pulling on the catheter only made hispain flare up so in the end, Dean had no option but to take it with him, running awkwardly and hating every second of it.

Finding the bag was nothing short of embarrassing in the first place. Knowing that someone had put their hands on his dick and undressed him to put a tube up it and empty out his pee. It made his skin crawl.

“Mr. Winchester?’ The voice came from the hallway. Dean turned around to the doorway to find a woman looking at him. “Please get back into bed. You shouldn’t be walking around. Get back into bed right now.” It was clear that there was no room for discussion. 

“I need to find my brother.”

“What you need to do is get into bed. The doctor will come in soon and tell you everything.” She walked up to him and gently coaxed him to turn around and walk with her. Let down the rails and let him sit down while she pushed gauze against his arm. 

Dean had barely been aware that it had been bleeding still, he didn’t know where she’d gotten the gauze or how she had gone and taken the situation in hand as quickly as she had.

He had no choice but to comply.

**  
  
**

🎈🎈🎈

The doctor came by an hour later, Dean lying in a bed with fresh linens and a clean hospital gown. The blood had been cleaned off the ground and he’d gotten a chance to pee by himself, without the catheter there. They’d brought him food and given him something for the headache, which was now barely a thought in the back of his mind.

In all of this, they’d spoken no word of Sammy. He’d asked and asked and asked but every time, the nurse steered away from the conversation and pretended he’d never asked.

At least the doctor would have answers.

That was what he’d been promised.

“Mr. Winchester.” The doctor sat down in the chair next to the bed, a serious expression on his face. “It’s good to see you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Where’s my brother?” Dean didn’t care about how he was feeling. He’d asked the nurse about being able to leave the second they’d finished cleaning up the room. He didn’t want to be in a hospital bed when all he had was a headache that was fading and no other bruises to show for the accident but the dark purple bruise where the belt had been. 

“I will tell you once I know how you’re doing,” the doctor promised. 

“I’m fine. No headache and no pain anywhere else.”

“It’s completely gone?” If the doctor wasn’t buying his lie, he’d have to pretend that he did.

“Yes. The only thing I am is worried for my brother. And hungry. Please.”

“The car accident was bad on both of you,” he started, his look pointedly not on Dean. “You got off the lucky all in all. We kept you in a medically induced coma for three days, to allow your brain to recover from the hit it got. Now you’ve woken up and are no longer feeling the headache, we are certain that you will be alright and you seem to be doing well.”

“What about Sam?” He didn’t care for how much the doctor was dancing around the facts. Didn’t care about what he’d been through or what he was facing. That would always come second to how Sam was. What Sam was doing. Where Sam even was.

“Your brother was less fortunate,” the doctor started carefully. “He was in the backseat not wearing a seatbelt. The collision with the tree sent him through the windshield. He was brought in together with you and was in the intensive care unit for the past days.”

“The past days? Does that mean he’s out now?”

“He died at half past six this evening.”

Dean could feel time stand still. The world stopped moving around him. All he could do was just stare at the doctor. Just stare and look and wonder if he somehow misunderstood the words. If somehow, in some kind of fucked up way, he managed to get it all wrong.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“How did he die?” Dean almost bit out the words. “What happened?”

“I don’t know the details, I didn’t treat your brother.” He could see how uncomfortable the doctor was telling the news. “As I have been told, he died because his lungs gave out and they weren’t able to ventilate him.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that even with machines, they weren’t able to get oxygen into his body. His cells died. There was nothing they could do.” 

**  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**

#  December 12th, 10.35am

Bobby forced Dean into the beat up Chevrolet Chevelle. Dean didn’t even know why he’d even called on him to come pick him up. Dean had wanted to walk out all by himself and just deal with it. Get to a motel room and just lay low. Process. Ignore it.

However, the hospital had forced him to get someone to come pick him up. Just like they’d forced him to stay the extra days when it had been the last thing that he wanted to do. What he wanted was to get the hell out of dodge and never come back. Take his brother home.

He’d hated hospitals before. Hated hospitals when his father died in them and when he almost died in one. Now, now that Sammy was dead - just thinking the words cut a wound deeper than he’d ever thought he’d feel - Dean despised them. Didn’t want to come near them ever again in his life. Every time, they’d just remind him of when he was told he’d lost his brother. 

“How ya doing?” Bobby asked him gruffly. The music in the car was playing quietly, quieter than he knew Bobby liked. 

“Fine.” 

“You’re not fine. You just lost your brother.”

“And now I have to drive him back to Kansas and salt and burn his body before burying him with mom and dad,” Dean said matter-of-factly. It was one of the things on his to do lists. Dean almost felt sick even having one, but he knew that if he didn’t do this now that he would never end up doing it. 

“Always thought you idjits would bury me.”

“Me too.” He’d never thought about it explicitly. Never thought about the end of them. He’d always thought that one of them would get lost in a fight with a monster. That one of them would get eaten or turned and the other would have to take matters into their own hands. Not a mundane car accident on a mundane road and in a mundane hospital. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“You can drop me off in a motel.” Dean said easily. “Once we get there. I’ll be fine on my own.”

“You won’t be.”

“I’ve gone through more than you think,” Dean barked back. “I’ll be fine.”

🎈🎈🎈

The motel room felt empty, vacant. One duffle bag on the bed, supplied to Dean by Bobby. The police had contacted him after the accident and he’d been the one to go to the junkyard to pick up the belongings from the car.

Dean was more than grateful that they didn’t check out the trunk and had assumed the slippery roads had been the cause for the accident. He was sure that they’d asked the hospital to check for blood alcohol and a drug screen and he was sure that the hospital would have gladly given them the results.

Only he knew the truth. Dean had been the reason that they’d crashed.

He’d killed his brother.

Knowing that started a deep hatred in his veins, made him feel nauseous and sick and gross.

He’d killed his own brother.

Not monsters. Not hunting. Not the roads. Him.

Dean had been the one to support him in coming back to hunting. Dean had been the one to teach him more tricks of the trade that they’d picked up in the time that Sam had run away. 

If that had never happened and Dean would have never come to him, Sam would be happy. He’d be living his life in Stanford becoming a damned fine lawyer. Hell, he probably would call on his brother att some point because things went south and he needed someone cheap to pick up where he couldn’t continue on.

It was him. All him.

Worst was that he kept looking up and expecting his brother to be there, maybe sitting at the small table drinking coffee and flicking through the newspaper in search of new cases. Dean would lay his head down for a while and when he opened his eyes again, he expected Sam to be asleep in the bed next to his, blankets pulled up to his neck, leaving his toes hanging over the bed, exposed to the cold air.

It was like Dean expected a note by his bed saying that his brother had gone out to do some research and that he’d be back with breakfast by the time he was awake. 

The realisation that all of that would never happen again was the worst of it all.

Sam would never walk through that door again.

**  
  
**

There was a second duffle bag in the back of the foreign car that they’d stopped to buy along the way. It was broken and ugly, but it would have to do. Bobby had driven him to the motel, not wanting him to drive it so soon.

Dean knew that Bobby didn’t trust him. He couldn’t blame him either.

Right now, Dean didn’t even trust himself.

**  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**

#  December 14th, 4.35am

Bobby stood over the shallow grave they’d dug, watching Dean as he worked without pause. He’d been digging for half an hour now, despite Bobby’s complaints that he could help out or take over.

Sweat was racing down Dean’s back and forehead, making his vision blurry. In the darkness of the night, it didn’t make that much difference. He couldn’t see much in the lantern lit clearing anyway. He could see Sam’s body, rolled up in cloth, laying a little bit away.

Just the thought that he was forced to go ahead and be in the same place with his brother again made Dean’s skin crawl. The thought that he was digging a grave for his brother made him want to hurl. 

He forced himself to focus on the work instead. It was a punishment in its own. It made his still recovering body ache. He didn’t care for the fact that it did, he deserved this pain. He deserved to suffer for what he did to his brother.

Dean knew that the second they would put Sam in his grave and lit the match, all he’d want to do would be go down with him.

His entire family was gone. His mother - even if he didn’t get a chance to know her longer than the first four years of his life - , his father, and now Sammy. They were all in the same place in the same cemetery. For some wicked reason, he wasn’t with them. 

It should have been the other way around. Sam should be alive, take the chance and go to school again, make something out of his life. Not Dean. He was good for nothing anyway. No chances of going back to school even if he’d want to. He wouldn’t get a shot at a normal, white picket fence life. Sam would have.

Bobby stood an awkward distance away from him, just watching as the flames licked at his brother’s face. Dean didn’t know what he’d expected, seeing his brother burn. If he’d feel disgust or jealousy, if he’d feel a deep sadness or just pain.

Truth was, he didn’t feel anything but hatred. Hatred at himself for taking Sammy away from him. For being the cause of his death. Hatred and a whole bunch of feeling nothing. Being numb.

He stared for long after the flames disappeared. Dean bit his lip and covered his brother’s ashes, put a cross that Bobby had made on the grave, then stared as Bobby drove him back to the motel room.

Dean still hadn’t driven the car. He knew he ought to, but just the thought of touching the steering wheel made his hands tremble and bile rise in the back of his throat.

He wasn’t worthy of being trusted. Especially not with a car. Especially not with someone else in it. He couldn’t kill another person that he loved, cared for.

**  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**

#  January 3rd, 2.35am

The bitch kept slipping out of his fingers. Every time Dean thought he got a hold of the demon or whatever it was trying to kill teenagers, it shifted and changed. He’d seen the flash of red eyes more than once, before whatever it was went away and skipped around. Before Dean had the chance to nail it down, they went away.

It frustrated him to no end. He’d always prided himself on knowing how to get the job done. Even if Sam helped, he’d been just fine on his own. Now, he doubted that. He missed Sammy too much. Missed him coming in with research or with ideas; missed their banter back and forth.

It had been an empty, long, numb month since he’d died. Dean was still looking for his brother everywhere. Still expected him to show up out of the blue as if nothing ever happened and life was like normal.

Yet, in all the waiting, it hadn’t. It hadn’t gone back to normal, Sam didn’t show up and Dean was acutely aware that he’d burned his brother’s bones. He’d seen the flames turn his brother to dust and bones.

Dean still found it hard to touch the car. Winter temperatures didn’t help much, with icy spots still being everywhere. He’d seen too many of them pass by. Just the thought of touching or holding the steering wheel made his hands tremble and bile rise to the back of his throat. 

His first drive was a short distance to the store and back and his heart had been hammering in his chest the entire time. The way back had almost been worse.

Small drives became longer drives, until he was able to trust himself behind the wheel again. At least when he was alone in the car. He couldn’t bring another person to their death, not like Sammy. At least if it was just him, he deserved it. But not other people. 

It was too late for him to be up. He wished that he could say that he’d just woken up and that he’d slept already, but Dean hadn’t. He was on his sixth or seventh cup of coffee. At some point, long ago, it had stopped having its effect on him. 

The small table in the motel room he was renting was littered in paperwork that he’d copied at the library. He’d looked at them for too long - the words swimming in front of his eyes.

He knew he should have gone to sleep a long time ago, but couldn’t. Instead, he took another sip from his cup and went over his notes just one more time.

🎈🎈🎈

Sam was in the backseat of the car, asleep with a blanket pulled over his legs. Dean was driving, eyes on the road and the music playing softly in the background. It felt familiar, somehow, as he drove down the dark street. Led Zeppelin was barely audible over Sam’s soft snores and if he was really honest, Dean didn’t mind that much.

Slowly, the dark turned into daylight. Sunshine came in through the windows, waking up his brother, who sat up groggily, rubbing his eyes.

“Good morning Princess,” Dean teased, turning up the volume on the car radio. “How was your nap?”

“You killed me.” 

Dean looked back at Sam, at the bloodshot eyes; at the bruises on his face. They hadn’t been there a second ago, Dean was sure of it. 

“You let me die.”

**  
  
**

🎈🎈🎈

Dean woke up with a start, startled by the strange surroundings and the sheets against his legs. He didn’t remember falling asleep, or going to bed. All he remembered was the case, taking notes, the coffees. His eyes growing heavier and heavier as the night passed on.

His eyes got used to the dark slowly. He made out the shapes of the furniture, the stains on the ceiling he chose to ignore for his own comfort. The two pairs of shoes on the ground between the beds.

_ Two _ ?

Dean turned on the light on the bedside table, shocked to see the second pair of shoes there, to see the socked feet dangling off the other bed. His heart skipped a beat, with excitement that it might be Sam.

But Sam was dead. He couldn’t be there.

With newfound suspicion and weariness, he moved his hands closer to the gun he kept stored underneat the pillow, hand on the handle, ready to pull.

“Who are you?” he spat out, before finally looking into the eyes of someone he knew all too well. His features were softer and he was smaller. A child. It was the Sammy Dean had known years ago, who was into toy soldiers and read books and hated that they were always moving around.

The Sammy who’d grown up. The Sammy who had died.

It couldn’t be him. Sam would never wear the kinds of things the whatever it was was wearing. The clown suit, the wig, the nose to top it all off. Sam was scared of them, wouldn’t go near them if there was even the smallest chance that he could avoid it.

But could it be?

“Hi, Dean.” It was Sam’s voice, happy and excited,  _ warm _ . “Are you okay? You were tossing and turning in your sleep.” 

“Sam?” That voice. It couldn’t be anything but Sam. Something in Dean’s heart warmed up for the very first time since Sam died. A small pit of warmth to keep the darkness away, even if just for a couple of seconds. Even if for nothing more than just now.

“Yes,” he said happily. “That’s me. I’m your friend. I’m here to help you, Dean. You were feeling so sad and scared, I had to come.” There was something unspoken in the words. As if he had come because  _ Dean _ wanted him to. 

“What are you?” Dean said through gritted teeth. He couldn’t believe that the creature in front of him was actually his brother. His brother was burned and salted, buried. There was no way that his child form could be here right now. “You better answer me fast.” He pulled the gun and cocked it, ready to fire. He knew that he had six bullets. Six bullets that he could shoot into his own brother’s head. To kill him once and for all.

In a sick sense. Even if his brother’s death wasn’t his own fault, it would mean that in the end, he did kill him.

“I’m a Zanna,” the fake Sam said calmly. “Think of me as an imaginary friend. We come to kids who need help escaping their own head. We help them come out of their shell and deal with what has happened to them. Help them make friends, get through school, help with homework or do it together. Anything like that. I’m not here to hurt you, Dean, I’m a good guy.” His brother flashed him a goofy grin. “Scouts honour.”

“Try that again, I’m not a child.” He was as far away from a child as he could ever get.

“Your soul is,” he answered softly. “I know that you aren’t. I was as shocked to see that as you are to see me, Dean. But your soul is still a child. Stuck, if you can call it that.” It was weird, hearing the sentences come from his brother. Dean almost expected him to sound like a kid, be a kid, talk like a kid. But instead, he talked like an adult, like they were equals. “You never got to be a child, so your soul made up for that by being stuck there, by not moving on.”

Dean had never been a kid. He’d always been in the hunter life, ever since his father went after the creature that killed their mother. He’d been watching out for Sam, taking care of Sam. Afterwards he’d helped his father. Done research for him. Picked up the pieces where John Winchester dropped them. He’d tried to do everything he could so that his brother could have the childhood that he had never gotten.

“I’m making you sad,” the Zanna said. He almost sounded sad, like he was messing up. “I didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Yeah, it’s okay.” He shrugged it off. He lowered the gun off of his brother, put the safety back on and put it back to where it should be. “Sam?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Sam shook his head, seemingly lost in thoughts. “Hey, do you want to see a magic trick?” His eyes almost seemed to be glistening when he asked him. It reminded him so much of his brother, of how he’d always tried to cheer him up after a long day of hunting. 

Sam had been in love with magic tricks when he was a child. He’d pulled out cards and bought silly, fake wands and trick devices, trying to make it seem like things were actually floating. He’d always done that.

“Sure, Sammy,” Dean said, resigned. God, he couldn’t fight this. It was his brother, right here. His brother was here back in his life and why was he trying to push him out again? Why was he trying to lose him? Why was Dean trying to get the one he missed so much out of his life again? “That would be great.” 

**  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**

#  January 7th, 11.48am

The waitress dropped a steaming plate of eggs in front of him and cheerfully wished him a good meal. Dean grumbled something back to her, a token of thank you that he didn’t feel like giving in the first place.

Dean wasn’t hungry. Hadn’t been hungry in what felt like entirely too long. He still forced himself to eat and get the eggs down, drink his coffee with them so they’d go down just a bit smoother. So it would feel just that little bit nicer.

He just wasn’t hungry anymore. Felt too weird, too out of it to enjoy the food that he knew he used to love. 

Sam and Dean used to stop in this exact diner when they were teens and their father drove them around. He’d always loved the scrambled eggs and bacon, could wolf down two plates if someone offered him. Sam had loved them too.

Now, it was hard to look at the bacon smile on the plate.

“What’s wrong?” an all too familiar voice asked out of the blue. “You’re so sad again.” 

Dean looked up, looking right into his brother’s brown eyes. It was still weird to him. So incredibly weird. His brother was there, but at the same time he also wasn’t.

Somehow, he was still wearing the clown suit. Real life Sammy would have hated it. He was afraid of clowns. Even though he’d thought that he’d grow out of it, he never had. He looked around, trying to see if any of the other patrons were looking weirdly at them. At the person who had just materialised in the seat. But they weren’t - business went on as normal. Not even the waitress at the nearby table looked up from the coffee. 

“They don’t realise that I’m here,” Sammy piped up. “It’s okay, they won’t know you’re talking either. Just thinking you’re eating your food. What’s up, Dean?”

“I was just thinking,” he sighed before shoving a fork full of eggs in his mouth. Food may not be his best friend right now, but at least it was better than having to talk about his feelings.

“About what?” Sam had his head in his hands, just looking at him. God, the clown nose threw Dean off so much. He almost couldn’t keep a straight face looking at him. “Why don’t you want to tell me?”

“We don’t talk about feelings.” He stuffed his mouth again, hoping to avoid the situation and the converstion. How could he tell his brother to his face that he was sad because it was  _ him _ who died? Telling someone sitting opposite him that he was dead.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Sam tilted his head, looking at Dean with confusion in his eyes. “Zannah always talk to their kids about feelings, that doesn’t change because you’re a big kid.” 

Dean chuckled at that. Big kid. He felt so far away from being a big kid. Instead he felt ancient, looking at Sam being so young. He was too big for Sam to be that little. The dynamics were all wrong.

“My brother just died,” he sighed eventually. He played with the rim of the coffee cup, almost spilling it when it accidentally tilted under the pressure. “I am thinking of him because we used to come here when we were kids and he loved the bacon smiles.” 

There wasn’t a lot of bacon smile left anymore. Most of the bacon had gone first. It was the thing that was still the easiest to eat, had the most flavor to Dean. 

“What was he like?” Sam asked, confused. Out of nowhere, a plate with an identical bacon smile appeared in front of Sam and he started eating it too. It almost felt like a comfort. In his head, Dean imagined himself younger and them waiting for their dad to pick them up once he was done dealing with some kind of creature. They’d sat very similar to this, with milkshakes instead of coffees - Sam had one in front of him now - and had chatted, Sam sometimes looking through a book or reading while Dean just stared outside, people watching.

For a second, he didn’t care that two of the people in this situation were dead. That he was the only one who survived. In his head, all that mattered was the fact that Sam was here and that was the only way to cope. Pretend that he was there because they were both kids.

“Sam was super smart,” Dean started. “Like, top of his class. Always knew the way out of things, even when no one else got it. Got into Stanford, wanted to become a lawyer. Would’ve become a great one. Though I’d never tell him.”

“Sounds like something he would have liked to know,” Sam mused, bacon half to his mouth. 

“Maybe.” In many ways, he was telling him that now. That he was proud of him for going off the road and trying to make something out of his life. Make something safe out of his life. Even if that meant that Dean was left with just his father and his demanding nastiness. “He would’ve married a great girl, you know, if this all hadn’t gone down. Her name was Jessica. Blonde hair, body to  _ die _ for. He hit the jackpot with her.”

Dean had only seen her once, when he’d come knocking on Sam’s dorm room door. When he had forcefully pulled him back into the life. She’d understood that there was something important to be done, and made him promise to come back soon. She made him promise to be safe and to come back in one piece.

Even though Dean had said he’d wait by the car, he waited in the stairwell as they said their goodbyes. He’d listened to the sickly sweet babble of lovers, still love sick even though they’d been together for over a year. How she promised that she would leave him good luck cookies for whenever he got back home.

“Sam always outsmarted me in  _ everything _ ,” he continued, small smile on his face. Dean remembered countless essays that Sam had written that had made Dean look bad. He remembered very clearly how their dad had asked Dean to do research on a creature and that Sam had joined Dean in it. Every time, he managed to give their dad more information than Dean had been able to find.

By the end, even though he enjoyed doing the research just as much as Sam did, Dean let him do it. If the kid liked it, who was he to take it away from him when he was better at it anyway.

“He saved my life a couple of times,” he admitted softly. Even though he didn’t know how much Sam knew about this entire thing. “Saved me from ending up under the ground. I loved him.”

“He loved you, too,” Sam said confidently. He was drinking the milkshake now, happily. It stung a little, hearing that. He wished that Sam would say ‘I love you too’ instead of speaking about a third person. Even if Dean knew that he just didn’t remember anything about his past life. Before he became a Zanna, whatever they were.

“You know,” Sam continued, “you’re incredibly smart too. You once wrote an amazing five page paper on an obscure thing about history and the only reason you never passed the class is because you never handed it in. The teacher found it later and told you you would’ve gotten an A, but that she couldn’t give you the grade now.”

But he couldn’t know that.

Dean sat staring at his brother, at the Zanna looking so much like his brother. How could he know that? He claimed to have no memories at all, didn’t know that he was the person that Dean was talking about. How could he know that?

“How do you know that?”

“I remembered it,” Sam shrugged. “I don’t know why.” 

He was remembering?

If he remembered this, what would be next? Would he remember that they were family? Would he start to remember all the things they did together growing up? Would he remember running away from home to go to Stanford in secret? Would he remember his girlfriend burning on the ceiling of their bedroom and remember how shocked he was afterwards? How vengeful he was? Would he remember the accident? Would he remember Dean killing him?

“I’m glad.” Dean said, hating that his voice sounded thick and that tears threatened to spill from his eyes. It was something simple, small. There was no reason for him to tear up. There was no reason to be emotional. 

“Are you feeling any better?”

“It was nice to talk about him,” Dean admitted softly. “Thank you for that.” 

Because it had been. Everyone who new about Sammy wouldn’t want to talk to him or he didn’t want to talk to them. The only person he wanted to talk to in the whole wide world was his brother. His brother with the shaggy hair who was freakishly taller than him even though he was younger. His brother. That was the only person he wanted back in his life.

And he had gotten him back. Somehow. Even if he wasn’t him. Even if he didn’t remember anything. He had his brother. They talked. It was somehting he could trick his brain into believing was normal and okay. 

“It was nice to hear about him,” Sam answered, finishing the last of his milkshake. “Thank you for telling me,”

“Thank you.” 

**  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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#  January 20th, 9.48am

The air in the hotel room was cold. Too cold. Begrudgingly, Dean pulled the duvet over him again. He knew it was already late and that unless he wanted to stay the extra day, he should be checked out by eleven. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to go out.

His night had been… rough. That was the easy way to put it. After waking up from a nightmare, the same one that had been haunting him for too many weeks now, Sam had shaken him awake and talked to him. It was all about little things that didn’t matter, like how Dean was doing and holding up, or if he wanted to talk more about Sam. They’d sat at the little table with a cup of hot chocolate for Sam and a cup of coffee for Dean and they’d just sat there in comfortable silence in the end, until Dean went back to sleep.

The past couple of weeks had been weird, if Dean was very honest. It was almost as if Sam realised that their conversations did make Dean happier. Because in a weird, crazy way, they did. They gave him his brother back. He was different, sure, but in many ways, he still was Sam.

He kicked his feet the same way in his sleep, he had the same expression on his face if he didn't like something. He had the same watchful expression when he was almost expecting Dean to get mad, or start crying, or if he was waiting for Dean to talk to him about what was wrong.

He kicked rocks on the street when he passed them, the same way that Sam had done when he was small. His sneakers constantly got untied and he just stuffed the laces into the shoes to keep them on just for now the same way Sam always had. His hair was starting to grow a little longer, having a slight curl in the same places that Sam’s had had it.

In so many ways, it was his brother. 

Dean had him back and that made him happy.

In other ways though, Sam wasn’t the same. He refused to go hunting with Dean, even if he would drive in the car with him wherever they were going and stayed with him almost constantly. Dean dreaded the momentt when he would disappear after sleeping in the other bed, after waking up with him.

The Zanna had said that it was out of their nature to hurt anyone. That they couldn’t let that happen, regardless of what happened in life. They just couldn’t. Just thinking about the violence that hunting entailed towards any kind of supernatural creature made Sam tear up and go away.

That was different. Sam had been driven, before the accident. He’d wanted to go and kill the demon that killed Jessica, and wanted to kill every single creature that they ran across along the way. He’d wanted his revenge.

There was nothing of that in this Sam. He was so fundamentally different.

And yet, the lines between the two began to blur. Soemtimes, it was so easy to think of him as that Zanna who just happened to look like his brother and was with him now, keeping him company.

Other days, he was his brother and Dean allowed himself to forget it.

The lines were blurring and Dean didn’t know how to feel about that. Even if it made him happy on the days that the lines blurred. Even if it made him happy because it meant he felt like he was just with Sammy again.

Zanna Sam was sitting on the second bed now, just looking at Dean with that same confused puppy expression that Sam used to have. As he’d grown older, that expression had slowly hardened. Maybe it was the years of hunting finally having their effect on his brother. Dean didn’t know. 

“What’s wrong?” Dean asked, still half asleep, huddled in the warmth of the duvet. He knew very well that motel blankets were always gross and questionable, but for a moment, he really didn’t care about it. All he cared about was being warm.

Sam was just watching him, as if he was trying to figure out the questions to all answers in the universe. As if his brain was just working, working, working.

“I am trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong,” Sam admitted. “I’m, well. New at this. You’re my first kid. Maybe there’s something I don’t know how to do. Maybe I am somehow making things worse.”

“Why would you be?”

“You’re still not happy,” he said unhappily. “You’re happier with me, but you just finished a hunt and saved a woman. How come that doesn’t make you happy?”

Dean hadn’t even been aware that he was thinking about that. It had been a tough case. Dean had taken forever to find the vampire responsible and behead it. In doing so, he’d managed to rescue a forty-year-old woman who had been taken captive by the creature. She’d been battered and bruised, but she would live. She would live to see another day.

“Why should I be?” Dean asked. He hated how true that question had become lately. Once upon a time, he’d been glad and happy to save people. It was why they did it. Saving people, hunting things. It was their thing. They’d always done that together. Saving people had been the whole reason they did it. To make the world just that little bit safer. “I saved her, so what? The vamp is dead, but something else will roll around and come to the town and more people will get hurt and die and that won’t stop.”

“Do you think it makes no difference that you saved her? That the town is now safe?”

“Why should it? Like I said. They’ll be back. Besides, she’s safe for now but in ten years she’ll get cancer or something and die and what good did those years do her you think? She’ll die anyway. That's life.” Dean hid deeper under the duvet. “Besides, what’s the point? Another hunter might have done this just the same. I don’t see why I should be happy that I did it when at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.”

Dean didn’t know when he slipped into this mindset, of thinking that it didn’t matter much. It happened slowly, in the days and weeks without Sammy. 

The reason they were so good at it might be that they were two people who were skilled at what they do -- even if Dean got a better knack of it than Sam after his years out of it -- it was also because they were a team. Because they were so good at knowing what the other needed, what they could do. They were strong in the points that the other was weak and the other way around. It just worked.

Alone, Dean didn’t care for it. He did it, because there was nothing else to do and he knew how to do  _ this. _ If it hadn’t been for that, Dean didn’t know what he would do. If he’d even continue hunting.

“But you did good,” Sam said, confused and almost hurt that Dean would think that. “ _ You _ saved that woman’s life, even if it could have been another hunter. It was you. You are the one who the woman will think back to and remember as the person who kept her from getting killed. And you cannot know if another hunter would have come along and dealt with it. They too could think that someone else will roll in.” Sam was looking at him with so much love in his eyes that it damped his anger and frustration and sadness. Even if it was just for a little bit.

“In those ten years, she could become a grandmother and see her grandchildren grow up. She could spent time with her husband who would otherwise have lost her in such a gruesome way. She could be happy and make memories for ten more years. Wouldn’t you wish that upon anyone? To have extra time to spend with the people they love?” 

_ I wished that on you, _ Dean thought bitterly.

“It’s just not the same. Doesn’t feel the same. I did it with dad and then I did it with Sammy and now I do it by myself and it’s  _ shit _ ,” Dean said, hating himself for letting it show, just how much it bothered him. He never thought it would feel so weird, saying it out loud. “We were a team, Sammy and I. We had our codes. We had back-up. We knew that we could trust the other  _ blind _ .” They didn’t have to talk to let the other know that they were in trouble. They just knew. And they knew how to help. “He pulled me out of some rough situations and I did the same for him. Except now I killed him and it’s  _ me  _ who gets to live through that. Ad if it wasn’t enough that I need to do that every single day, I am also forced to deal with it when I’m doing the  _ one _ thing in my life that’s been a constant and it’s shit. As a matter of fact I hate it.”

They were both silent for a while, Sam just sitting there, looking at Dean with wide eyes.

“Whatever I do, whichever deciscion I make, it means  _ shit _ without Sammy.” Dean didn’t even realise he’d sat up from the bed until the cold hit his arms. “It’s not worth anything.” 

In an instant, he felt the warm embrace of arms around his shoulders. Sam was sitting next to him, holding him close.

He couldn’t do anything but freeze at the sudden contact. He felt different from Sammy. It almost felt as if his touch came from miles and miles and miles away. The blood in his veins froze.

But then, he looked down at the head hidden against his chest and the arms squeezing him hard and he was back to the olden days. Back to seeing his brother run up to him with his backpack flowing freely. Back to Sam’s long hair and awkward legs moving faster than his body would allow him. Back to Sam hugging him tight at the school gate and telling him how school had been. And how excited he is to see Dean again. How much he missed him.

Back to the days where he would leave school early so he could see this every day, to see four year old Sam be so excited and happy and cheerful. He was Dean’s ray of sunshine. He was the one who helped Dean feel comfortable and good. He was the one who made it worth his while.

He hugged Sam back, letting the warmth rush over him instead of fighting it. He stopped fighting the warmth and the comfort and the happy feelings. He stopped fighting the smile that spread across his face.

For a moment, he let himself truly be. For a moment, he was happy.

**  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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#  February 10th, 5.48am

It had been five days. Five long, long, long, long, long days. Five days of solitude. After spending so much time with Zanna Sam, it felt weird, wrong even, to be alone again. It had happened so unexpectedly too, in a stupid moment of arguing that made no sense anymore now.

All Dean knew was that he fucked this up. He fucked this up royally.

He’d gotten Sam back, then he’d gotten angry and bit at him, and now he lost him again. It had been two months since his brother died and instead of having his almost brother here to guide him through the grief, he was alone, left wondering what the fuck happened and how he managed to screw himself over, again.

It almost felt like he’d killed Sam all over again.

The argument had been stupid. Dean wasn’t able to stop replaying it in his head over and over and over again. He’d left to finally confront a nest of vampires - the second confrontation with them in less than a month, which almost worried Dean - with Sam driving with and trying to stop him.

“Your chances of getting out of there are zero, Dean,” Sam had told him when they’d almost been at the safe spot to park the car. It had been just out of sight from the nest, but close enough that he could run for it if he needed anything.

Dean had been more than aware that it was a suicide mission. That his chances of coming out of it were in many ways, almost zero. There were three known vampires and a possibility of many others. Even for a two man job, it would be risky. Going in alone was. Well. The dumbest possible way to go about it.

And yet. He’d been oddly at peace with it. He’d wanted to go in regardless of the risks. Even if it meant they took him. What if he got killed? It hadn’t been like there was anyone left for him here. If they turned him, well. That would be a problem, but he’d deal with that. He’d find a way to either control it or kill himself. Make sure that there wasn’t anyone he could abuse.

Sam hadn’t been okay with that and they’d fought, ugly. At least, from Dean’s side. He’d thrown words at Sam that he wasn’t proud of, calling him a coward for not wanting to hunt, for being such a prissy about hurting anything. 

He wasn’t proud of it, but he’d been hurt. Even if that wasn’t a good excuse.

It wasn’t an excuse at all.

What it left him with was a nagging feeling of guilt, loneliness and hurt. Sam hadn’t come back. He hadn’t been back for five days and it  _ worried  _ him.

What if he’d lost Sam for good? What if he’d finally pushed him away so far that even someone who wasn’t supposed to be able to hate you, hated you? Didn’t want to see you again? Didn’t want to help you anymore, even if it was thei one goal in life?

Dean could barely breathe, thinking about it.

His feet carried him around the room, up and down, up and down the path between the two beds. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. His brain was working in overdrive, trying to think of ways to apologise to Sam. To let him know that he didn’t mean it, that he wasn’t at all angry with him. That it was just that he was upset with the world and he got to be the victim of it.

Which wasn’t fair.

He owed him an apology. A big one. And Dean knew that, he knew that very well.

The problem was that he didn’t even know how he could call Sam. He had not a single way of contacting him. There was no way that he knew. Sam didn’t have a number he could call. He couldn’t read Dean’s thoughts.

Sam had said that they came to kids in need. Then why wasn’t he here, when it was so obivious that Dean needed him? Wanted him here more than anything else in the world.

Back and forth, back and forth, back anf forth.

But what if Sam had been hurt? What if somehow, his words had gotten to Sam and he’d wanted to hunt something? What if it hadn’t ended up well? What if? What if? What if?

Dean turned around on his feet, his back to the nightstands, when he saw him there. Full on clown suit, complete with the nose and the colorful hair. He didn’t even realise that he’d fallen to his feet until Sam was suddenly his size, a little taller.

All that flooded through him was relief. Relief that he was okay, that he wasn’t hurt that he wasn’t, well. Dead. He was here again, after all those days of radio silence. After all the trouble and the sleepless nights and the pacing, Sam was back in his life.

“Hi, Dean,” Sam said, crouching down in front of him, so they were perfectly at eye level. He had a deck of cards in one of his hands. “You were so distressed. I have something nice for you.” 

Sam pulled out three cards, concentration clear on his face. He showed all three of them off to Dean, so he knew to recognise them. Dean vaguely memorised the five of hearts and the clover two, noting absently that there was another card that just wouldn’t stick in his brain.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Yes, Sammy,” he choked. “I know them.”

“Now watch this,” he said, tongue peeking out of his mouth. Sam put the cards back in the pack and shook it up, offering it to Dean to do the same. Dean’s fingers almost trembled too much to manage. The relief that flooded through him was still so strong. Sam was here, he was okay. He was okay, he was okay.

Sam put the pack on the floor between them and looked at the cards, hovering one hand above them. Dean watched as he lifted the hand higher, three cards slipping out of the pack and rising up steadily, before they finally rested around Sam’s face. Small streamers lifted from his sleeves, floating around them all the same.

“Tada!” Sam yelled and threw his hands in the air, a grin on his face. “Were those your cards?”

“Yes,” Dean said, just staring at Sam. It was almost like that was the thing he needed to snap out of it. He was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was back and he was trying to cheer him up. That he was doing his best to make sure that Dean was okay.

There was only one logical thing to do.

Dean threw his hands around his brother and just held him. Held him tighter than they ever did when Sam was alive.

“It’s okay, Dean,” Sam said comfortingly, patting his back. “I would never leave you.”

**  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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#  March 13th, 5.26pm

****  
  


Four weeks later, Dean had to endure a trip to the emergency room - Bobby had to take him.

Dean did his best to ignore the last part. 

Bobby had laughed when Dean came out of the room in a wheelchair with a big cast around his leg. Dean  _ guessed _ that he couldn’t blame him, because at the end of the day, if it would have been the other way around, Dean would also be rolling on the floor with laughter. 

The nurse had asked him which color cast he wanted - almost as if he was five - and when he’d joked and said he wanted pink, she’d been  _ this  _ close to actually wrapping it in pink before finally putting black on. At least it wasn’t as noticeable. His jeans had been cut up above his leg, and despite being angry about the fact that his favorite jeans were now ruined, he hated the fact that it was cut until just above his leg.

“You’re gonna be living in sweatpants, boy,” Bobby joked, as if Dean had any. Dean  _ knew _ that it would be living in PJs and not leaving the motel for a good long while for him. Which, Dean wasn’t necessarily angry at. 

That was until Bobby said that he should come live at his place for a bit, so at least he’d have food and a bed that he could get to, plus help if he needed it. Dean couldn’t say that he was excited about the prospect, but that could be added to the list of ‘things Dean Winchester didn’t love about breaking his leg’.

It was three days into living with Bobby that Sam finally told Dean that he didn’t want him to hunt for now. Dean didn’t know if that meant until his leg was healed, of if that meant for the next six months, or what.

Truth was, Dean had seen it coming. He couldn’t be angry at it. Or even blame him for it. Sam had wanted him to take a break for weeks and the more he talked about it, the more it appealed to him.

He knew that he had a lot to think about. A lot to deal with. He knew, even though he hated it, that he couldn’t just do that by hunting and killing things.

Sam had shown him that. Slowly but surely, he’d let him in. Sam talked and talked and talked until the words he said made sense to him. Appealed to him. Until he’d also wanted to do them.

Like this staying home and figuring himself out. How to get out of the miserable home of grief and sadness, and move on. Get his life together.

Sam was sitting next to him on the small bed on Bobby’s main floor, one leg pulled up on the bed. He’d ditched the rediculous clown shoes and the hair, but was still sitting there with the jarring blue nose, almost as if he was proud of it. As if it was his most priced possesion, besides the suit.

“I want to tell you something,” Sam said. “I am starting to remember things.”

‘What things?” Dean asked, surprised. He hadn’t expected this to happen. Even though Sam had onbce remembered something, it hadn’t happened afterwards. Sam never mentioned things that he shouldn’t know and Dean assumed that it was because there weren’t any others.

Maybe he’d been wrong.

“I remembered the night of the accident, the day in the cafeteria when you told me you missed your brother. Ever since, bits and pieces have been coming back to me. I don’t have everything back, but I’d say a good ninety percent.” Sam waited in silence, almost as if he was ready to be chastised, for Dean to get angry at him.

He wanted to. Because if he remembered that they were brothers, why didn’t he say so? Why did he have to push it off and not tell him?

“Because I didn’t want this to change, I guess. There’s something that I want to tell you. I don’t blame you, Dean. I don’t - It was an accident. You didn’t kill me. You did the best you could. I never blamed you, Dean. I wouldn’t.” 

Dean couldn’t stop himself from tearing up at the words. 

“I became a Zanna because I was offered a choice. It. It seemed a good one to me, Dean. To not die, but to help people move on with their lives? Help kids be happy?”

“That’s a very you thing to do,” Dean said, voice thick.

“And, I think that’s why they put me on you. Because you needed someone. You needed me. You don’t anymore.”

“No,” Dean admitted softly. He didn’t. Not in the way he did before. He craved having him there. Freaked out if he didn’t. But now, he’d grown more comfortable with everything, he had started processing it. He still loved the visits from Sam, and wanted them to happen. But the deserpate need to have them was gone. It had been replaced by a warmth instead. By a want for them, and a deep appreciation when they happened. 

“It’s why I’ve come less. Because I think that you’re ready, Dean. I will visit whenever I can. And I will, often. But, until you say that you don’t need me anymore, I will be tied to you. Constantly with you.”

“And you want to move on to someone else.”

“I want to help kids,” Sam admitted softly. “But only when you’re ready. When you don’t need me anymore.” 

Dean’s mind was spinning. Racing. It meant Sam wouldn’t be here. That they wouldn’t share as much of their lives together. But, they’d still be together often. Sam would come visit. 

And truth was, he knew his brother, he knew himself.

“I don’t need you anymore, Sammy,” Dean said, voice wavering only slightly. “It’s okay. Just don’t forget about me.”

Sam flickered for a second and there he stood, wearing normal clothes, a smile on his face. “I could never forget about you, Dean. I will see you soon.” 


End file.
